This somehow reminded me of the lyrics of Nell's song, A.S.
"You paint, my pain
With your vacant rain,
And make all these worthless fears go away."
A.S stands for "After Sex", if I'm remembering correctly, and at the tender age of 17 when I discovered this song, it was the most beautiful portrayal of something which not only entirely terrified me, but I had no interest in ever experiencing.
Meanwhile, those around me were pursuing whatever it was which caught their teenage fantasy in the most blood-rushing, chemical-producing way possible. I chose to stay unaware of the conquests which fascinated my peers, and I spent the energy of those years on academics, believing a poet who also sang of such tender admiration and vulnerability existed somewhere on this earthly sphere.
I'll be twenty eight years old in a month. I have been in therapy, actual, serious therapy, for a year. I have not learned to distinguish between shame and guilt, but I have learned to ask myself to try. I have not conquered my anxiety or my people-pleasing, but I've learned I will survive my next panic attack over someone's criticism. I have not forgiven myself for all of my mistakes, but I have felt God forgive me for all of them, and He has taken the shame calculator and smashed it with His fist.
I try on different labels like a kid tries on shoes; meaning, I lay on the ground kicking and screaming because my sock seam is in my toes and the sides are pinching and this isn't it.
My brain is whirring and I am not producing my best explanations at the moment, but basically I still have no idea how to explain myself to someone else, and I long for someone else to care about that explanation, and I wish to be given hours to discuss it, without the nagging fear that he will realize my brain was very pretty but the fat bulging right under my bra strap (where he places his hand) is ultimately disgusting, and the size of my thigh (where he places his hand) is the greatest turnoff he has ever experienced. I will never be able to wipe his skin cells off those parts of my body, and they will be outlined in white chalk on the murder scene of my life until forensics is done examining them.
I reached the scathingly boring conclusion, after coming home, that the people who have known me the longest don't necessarily know me the best. This is partially because my reaction to being different was to make myself more obviously different. Pretty much everyone hated how they looked back then, but my solution was to be as extravagant, outlandish, and loud as my mother would allow. If everyone is looking at you because your clothes are weird, no one is looking at you because of your stomach, or your acne, or your height. Those are secondary concerns to them- their initial confusion is as to why you're dressed that way.
It feels like everyone concluded I was perfectly, incredibly fine, and only their house was breaking beneath their two feet, and mine was intact.
But as we drove home and I asked a deeply inappropriate question outside the Family Dollar, I also revealed that one day in 2007 I was convinced I'd just been abandoned.
I wonder why that comes as such a shock.
I should be seeing the news
Alien life forms, room temperature
Super conductors, and the agenda
Seeping from my childhood toys
Bleeding hot pink,
But I'm standing in the dining room
Holding my tongue, the greatest truth
Right on my lips, right on your lips
You kissed me
It hurt and helped and exploded
From the top of my head to my soul
A thousand dreams became reality
In a brilliant rush
I care not for anything else
I would rather enjoy my time on this rock
Curled in the safest and scariest arms
I have ever known.
